semperfido

I've taken up some light gardening as therapy and some stress relief....  so last night, I was planting some flower beds under the tree and at least two cats came by.  One was a fat black and white tuxedo cat who was wearing a collar and a bell.  He ran through my front yard in pursuit of some kind of bug.  The second cat was a lithe, beautiful brown tabby, not completely tabby - his coat was more brown but he had a couple of stripes.  He was beautiful.  I haven't missed owning a cat until then.  I can't have a cat with my allergies, but it made me miss my kitties and I think how much they would have loved living in TX.

Anyway, the point of the story, as this cat laid himself down next to my flower bed and watched with amusement everything I did, probably thinking about what a wonderful litter box I had just built for him, I tried to think like one of our cat customers.  I tried to come to the conclusion that:
- This cat is starving and has been living on the street for months and I must feed him now.
- This cat is clearly abused because he's out running around the neighborhood.
- The cat's owner's clearly abandoned him and there is no possible way that he has a home.
- Continue to feed the cat for months, every time he showed up on my property.
- Decide, for one reason or another, that I can no longer afford to feed this cat, who is now really fat because he's getting fed at multiple homes in the neighborhood, that this neutered male cat is pregnant and that I must bring him to the shelter.

Try as  hard as I could, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Moral of the story????....  I'll let you figure that out for yourself.

My good friend John S. emailed me today to tell me about the passing of one of my old bosses, Bingham Ray.  It's very sad news.  It brings back fond memories of my career in independent film, long gone.  We were young and we had it all....  Bingham was an awesome guy with a vision.  He certainly played the part but he was no Bob or Harvey Weinstein (yes, I worked for the brilliant but mean bullies for years).  He was kind and I really admired him.

Anyway, if you want to see me from 1996, I'm in the video.  I'm standing next to Bingham while we were waiting for the Academy Award nominations.

RIP Bingham

I haven't done any of Laura's posts but I thought the 6 month goal was interesting, especially with my current craziness.  I'm not sure what the code is - Laura if you're reading, lmk, what I need to do. 

Here it goes...

Going forward over the next six months, what are your goals?

Goals. Interestingly, I've been thinking in six month increments.

For Myself:

1. Establish a routine - It's been very difficult moving and being on my own.  I had a routine in Brooklyn.  When I first moved to Austin, I started to develop a routine and it promptly went out the window with my insomnia.  I think goal #2 which is somewhat in the works of being accomplished will help me establish a routine.

2. Get a job - I know that sounds pretty basic.  It's really scary being on my own and it has been really scary after the loss of my business, my home, my life and everything I've known for 17.5 years go down the drain in a nano second.  I'm paying out bills and I have no income.  I decided in the last 2 weeks that I don't know how much I want to re-establish Semper Fido.  I don't need the stress of managing my own business when I'm on my own.  It's too much of a financial burden.  I can do as much or as little Semper Fido as I want.  I'm going to be teaching agility classes a few days a week (I can do pet classes if I want but I want to put that on hold as the full time job may come about.)  The shelter job is coming.  Just please keep your fingers crossed for me.  It's going to be really hard work, especially in the beginning but I'm excited because there is a lot of opportunity there.

3. Get back to the gym - I had a great gym routine - unemployed and nothing better to do.  But after I got sick and ended up in the hospital, I've only been once.  I'm going today.  Before I stopped, I was able to run a mile without stopping.  I hope to get up to three miles in six months.  That's totally do-able.  This will help me with agility.  I want to lose 20 more lbs and I want to lose my granny arms!

4. There are some relationship goals that I have put forth - if they work out.  I don't want to publish them publically so I will leave that private.  Those who are friends might have seen what might be happening.  We will see if it works out.  I'm going to try because I totally think it's worth it.  Beyond six months - probably in a year's time, I want to buy a house.

Outlining these goals is important for me.  I also think that it's hard.  My life has completely changed in the last four months.  I had it all and now have nothing.  I lost my relationship, my business, my cat, one of my dogs, all of my belongings, had a bunch of health problems.  Defining goals has been all I've been doing.  These goals - totally short--term.  Can I get through today?  What do I have to do in the next week to make it to the next?  I've persevered and setting these goals has kept me alive (I'm not kidding.)  But I don't want to put too much pressure on myself with specifics.  When I beat myself up, that's the worst.

For my dogs:

I don't really have a goal for my dogs.  I have entered an agiity trial.  Both of them are entered in agility classes.  This is the first step.  I still need to concentrate on me because if I'm not here, there are still no goals for them.  They can be hooigans.  I don't really mind.  Sure, I would like to have Shasta qualify for nationals but I really don't know if I'm going to have time for any of that.  I am concerned with my work schedule and them getting enough attention and exercise.  I need to figure that out.  That's extremely important.  In less than six months time, personal goal #4 might have worked and that will help my dogs.

There you have it.  They are so simple yet really complicated.  If I accomplish one or two, I will be happy.  Baby steps...

I entered a three day AKC Agility Trial.  No, I don't have any money.  I don't have a job.

The trial is in Austin proper - three days in November.  I kinda had to.....

Here is a link to the pictures from the other night.  I'm loving them!!!!  BTW.  I'm getting better at capturing movement in low light but sometimes my focus set was off but making quick decisions makes that difficult too. This was a killer show.  They ended with a cover of "Miss You" by the Rolling Stones.   OMG - how he could make my favorite disco Rolling Stones songs into the epic rock and roll song is amazing.   Alejendro is definitely an interesting guy and his personality is so portrayed in his music.  I'm really digging him. http://flickr.com/photos/organize/?start_tab=one_set72157627537516806 Embedded 

I have these two dogs, a sheltie and a border collie.  They were pretty awesome agility dogs at one time.  I worked really hard training them.  I probably worked a little too hard, took it a little too seriously but I do think they loved it.  See, the border collie has a lot of talent and potential.  I watch the videos and see little hints of the ground speed of which she is capable.  When I watch videos, I see how happy she is doing it.  Really, she truly loves it.  Shasta has a gift of happiness.  The compliments I get when she comes out of the ring, boy she's so happy.  She is.   Sure there is stress and she stressed up sometimes but not mistaking stress for happiness.


So now my two dogs are relegated to chasing squirrels in the back yard.  That's okay.  They like chasing squirrels.  They like hiking when it's not hotter than Mars outside.  Um... ball... we still live and die for the ball.  But I really do think they enjoyed agility.  Whisper was naughty and used the dog walk in our yard to get closer to the squirrels.  I had to take the ramps off.


So where do I go from here?  Throw it all away.  Put it on the shelf and dust it off later.  I know, not much time has passed.  Our last show was the first week of May, just a week before my world imploded.  I don't have the money - I could start a let's get Shasta back into competition, fundraising campaign.  LOL.  It's not me.  If I want to put food on my table, I can't do agiity.  Sure, if anyone sent me an anonomous gift certificate in the mail for something local, I probably wouldn't say no.  I think there is a close USDAA trial in a couple of weeks.  Maybe I'll forgo beer and buy a run or two.  Try it on and see if it fits.


My dogs are not in condition and not in practice.  I don't care about that.  We have the best agility instructor in the world who lives right here in Austin, TX and she happens to be a friend of mine.  She keeps trying to get me to sign up for a class.  I don't know why I can't bring myself to do it.

 I love my dogs.

 So, yeah, this week has been really hot - around 107 degrees.  The heat hasn't bothered me too much but when your scalp starts to sweat just from being outside, it's hot.  My dogs have done some light activity - short early morning hikes and kayaking for Shasta (it was her first time on Saturday and I hope to go again this weekend).  Since I moved to Austin, I haven't really done much training with them.

Training is mental exercise and I think mental exercise and stimulation is a perfect way to do something with your dog when the weather conditions don't allow for much physical exercise.  I vowed this week, that I would do some training with both dogs and I started today.

When living in NYC, I didn't really have a need for the dogs to stay/wait at doors, nor for individual releases.  Meaning, having both dogs in a stay and then releasing one dog while the other stays and vice versa.  Both Shasta and Whisper are getting to high on racing each other out to the back to chase squirrels and birds.  They need to be a bit calmer exiting the slider.  If I release one without the other, I'm finding myself restraining the dog who was supposed to be in a stay.  I'm a dog trainer, I shouldn't be doing stuff like this.  Thus, this was the evolution of training today.  I didn't really plan this but it just started to happen organically.

First, both dogs have brain atrophy from me not asking them to do anything mental since May.  My training session should be simple, stuff they know but a brush up.  I trained Shasta first, set up a mat in the kitchen and a fit paws disc in the dining room.  I practiced having her go from her mat to putting her front or rear feet on the disc.  I also did go to mat (forward and reverse - walk backward onto the mat).  We also did various position on the mat, lie with head down (splat) and lie on your side (settle).  Shasta always gets enthusiastic and tries to rollover too.

When switching dogs, I thought, hey, Shasta needs stay work if we're ever going to do agility again, so I decided to use another mat (my bathmat which now needs to be washed) as her stay station while I trained Whisper.  Oh boy this was difficult for Shast and she kept trying to get on the kitchen mat anytime I asked Whisper to go.  She's such a goof.  She finally got the idea of staying on her mat while I worked Whisper.  Good thing I have good aim for chucking treats when she was successful.  My rule is never to reward the dog if they've broken their stay so she got a bunch of no treat trials.  But she started to figure out staying produced the treats and she was still being trained (passively) while I was working with Whisper (actively).  Whisper was much better at this exercise but she has more experience with this kind of stuff since I used to work a lot of stays with her plus she's a food hog and knows the mat always produces cookies.  

The hard part for both dogs was staying while I released the other.  Neither broke when I said the other dog's name but the second I said, okay chaos ensued (not really but they both released). So I will teach them, Whisper - okay or Shasta - okay.  They need to listen for their name before they are released.  Just okay without a name preceding it should mean that they are both free to get up.  

The training session lasted no longer than 10 minutes but they were both so happy to do something.  Also setting this up as stations - mats and fit paws discs helped make the session more fun for them rather than traditional stays.

 Okay, this is my public entry.  Flipnotics = way fun.  The band last night was Joshua Fletcher and the Six Shot Romance.  They are from Atlanta and they were touring the West Coast with some band from Brooklyn.  They were driving home and booked small gigs on their way.  So, this tiny, cool little coffee house the size of my Brooklyn apartment.  This band had so much restraint and finesse playing in those conditions.  You could tell, they toned it way back but done with such class, not just playing softly.  Excellent to see some really great musicians.  Anyway, super cool guys who let me take pictures.  Obviously, lens issues and low light and movement = some blur but still fun. 

 Yeah, practicing really helps.  I geeked out last night taking pictures.  The sky was amazing and I hard a hard time picking and choosing the best pictures because they were all a bit different.  But I think these are the best.  And for you photo geeks out there, low light - night shots done without a tripod - very long exposure times.  God, I love that I have a steady hand and can hold my breath.  Fun, fun, fun!!!!!

Imagine when I get a better lens.  I made peace with some wide angle stuff - with the right setting, kinda neat.